The Handmaid and the Carpenter (7 page)

He reached past her to open the door, and she went inside. After Joseph came in, she closed the door behind them and reached for him, putting her arms around his neck. But he stepped away from her, saying, “Not now, Mary. Nor tomorrow, nor the day after, nor the day after that. Only when it has left your body will I know you.”

Mary moved her hand to her stomach and spread her fingers wide. “He is not an it.”

Joseph shrugged. “For now, we shall go back to the houses of Anne and Joachim, and Rachel and Jacob, to tell them the news. We must not stay here; it is improper until we have had our wedding ceremony.”

Mary looked around excitedly, then spoke, her voice earnest. “I honor this and all our traditions.” She gestured for Joseph to go out before her, and took one last look around. Then she closed the door behind her gently, as though it might break. As though it had been crafted not from sturdy wood but from spun glass, and required great care in the handling.

She took his hand and walked closely beside him, and he looked down on her black hair, her perfect shoulders, the rise of her breasts grown larger with pregnancy. She moved with indescribable grace, and he thought of how he would lie with her someday. But not now. Not yet. Not until her womb was again empty and they were, in that way, back to where they’d started. And it was from there, he thought, that they would begin again.

ON THEIR WEDDING NIGHT
Joseph lay on his side, turned away from Mary.

“Joseph?” she said.

“I am weary, my wife.”

“Yet I am full of thoughts and so many feelings! Can we not speak? Have you no words at all for your wife on the day you have wed her?”

He turned to face her, suddenly shy. “Of what shall we speak?”

Mary smiled and reached out to run her fingers along the side of his face. Her touch! “I am happy to be here.”

“And I am happy you are happy.” He kissed her fingers and then took his hand away. No good would come of him being further aroused.

Mary took in a deep breath. “And I shall say, as well, that I hope you will come to see that what the angel told you—”

“We shall speak of it no more. I order this, my wife.”

She lay quietly, then said, “Would you like to feel it?”

He knew what she meant. Her rounded stomach. “No,” he said.

“He moves most actively this night. Perhaps he is telling us of his joy at our union.”

“No, Mary.” He yawned, though he felt no need to.

“Or perhaps he is frightened at his new surroundings. Oh, Joseph. Do you think he is frightened?”

He made his breathing go deep and regular, that she might think him asleep. After a time, he heard her leave her pallet and move out to the other room. He rose and followed at a distance in the darkness. She wrapped a shawl around herself and slipped out the door. Was she leaving him? Again? He was ready to call out angrily to her when, through the crack in the door, he saw her sit with her back to the house and look up at the stars. She sang, softly, sweetly, and rocked herself from side to side. Both of her hands rested over her belly, and when she had finished singing she looked down at herself. “Shhhhh,” she whispered. “I am here now as ever I shall be. Great is my love for you, and my devotion enough for two.” Again she rocked from side to side, and the smile on her face Joseph felt in his knees.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nazareth
DECEMBER, 4 B.C.

Joseph

E LAGGED, COMING HOME. HE DREADED SHARING
with his wife the news he’d learned at the marketplace. A census had been ordered by Caesar Augustus in Rome. A messenger, accompanied by Roman soldiers, had stood in the middle of the crowd to read:
I, King Herod, as a friend of Caesar, decree: Let every man repair to the place of origin of his house and family and have his name inscribed in the public registers.
After the soldier’s departure, the Nazarenes had talked worriedly among themselves. Once their names were inscribed, they could no longer evade the payment of the poll tax. Also, they would owe more taxes on their land, as it would now be more accurately assessed. Already they were poor and struggling; must they become poorer still?

Joseph put away the donkey in the workshop he had built next to the house; it doubled as a stable at night. He filled one bucket with grain and another with water. He spread hay for the animal’s bed. “More troubles for we who are troubled, eh?” he said. The donkey stared at him and swished his tail. “I am as well without a solution,” Joseph said. He patted the donkey’s rump and went inside the house.

Mary was at the stove, stirring the chickpea-and-eggplant stew she had made. A fresh loaf of bread rested on top of the stove. She turned to greet him, flush-faced and happy. But her smiled faded when she saw him.

“What has happened?”

Joseph let himself down wearily into the chair he had made only last week. That was when he was feeling secure about his own success, sure that he would grow more and more prosperous and that soon he and Mary would have more chairs than they could use. Enough for the whole village! he had told her. “We shall offer to lend them to those having wedding feasts, that all their guests may sit in comfort.” For it was indeed the season for weddings. With no seeds to sow, with no harvesting of barley and wheat and olives and grapes to consume entire days, young people had time to celebrate the end of their betrothals and the beginning of their married lives. Only last week, Mary and Joseph, along with their parents, had attended a lavish wedding. Rachel’s eyes had filled with tears, watching the couple exchange vows, and Joseph had suspected it was not because of the usual poignancy attached to new love and the beginning of a new life. His suspicions were confirmed when, after consuming a large goblet of wine, she had collapsed into a chair, blubbering and saying over and over, “You would have had better.” Jacob had apologetically escorted her away from the festivities.

Joseph had looked for signs of envy or regret in Mary and had found none. She was genuinely glad for the couple, and pleased with her own circumstances. For their life together was going well. They loved each other, they were content in their work, and their parents were looking forward to the coming of their grandchild—though each set of parents had their own ideas about the baby’s origins. Rachel was markedly cool with Mary for over a month, and Jacob fearful of being too friendly. He liked Mary a great deal, but feared his wife more. Therefore he lowered his head when he welcomed Mary to his home and suppressed his normal jubilant self around her in deference to Rachel, who would not so much as offer Mary a smile. But that awkward time was gone now, and all waited in pleasant anticipation for the child, who was due soon. The midwife who met Mary at the well only last week had predicted three weeks more, and her predictions were remarkably accurate.

Now this. Now Joseph, born in Bethlehem, would need to make the long journey there. It was more than eighty miles and would take ten days, round-trip. But he must go. And so in answer to Mary’s worried question about what had happened, he answered, “There has been a decree issued. All must register for a census in the town of their birth. Therefore we must go to Bethlehem.”

“But I am so near my time!” Mary said.

Joseph shrugged. “Caesar cares not.”

Mary moved to sit beside him. “I shall stay with my parents.”

“No, Mary. As my wife, you will make the journey with me.”

“I am near my time!” she said again, and again Joseph said, “Caesar cares not! We must leave in the morning, Mary. And now may I have my dinner?”

Mary looked into Joseph’s face, weighing arguing with him, he knew. Then she went to the stove and filled two bowls with her stew, which was every bit as delicious as it smelled, and he told her so. After a long moment, she thanked him.

Later, when they lay on their pallets before sleep, he reached out to touch her shoulder. “I am sorry to ask this of you, my wife.”

She turned toward him. “It is only that I fear for the child.”

“You must not fear. For I will care for you both.”

She drew in a quick breath. Then she nodded, patted Joseph’s hand, and turned away from him. He sensed that her spirits had lifted markedly, for never had Joseph said he would care for the child. Never had he mentioned him.

“Do you smile in the darkness?” he asked.

Silence.

“Mary?”

She giggled, then turned back to him. She kissed his forehead, his eyes, his mouth. And then he kissed hers. It was their way.

“Our journey will go quickly,” he said. “We will soon return, and then the baby will be born, and all will be well.”

CHAPTER NINE

Bethlehem
DECEMBER 25

Mary

HIVERING ON THE COLD GROUND AT NIGHT,
her wool cloak her only covering. Covering her ears against the cries of leopards and jackals that lived in the brush of the Jordan River valley. During the day, dust in her nose, in her hair. The ever-growing soreness in her back, her buttocks, her legs. The terrible thirst—once, Mary nearly fainted for want of water. And once she nearly fell from the donkey when he stumbled on a rock. A near robbery, until Joseph talked his way out of it, saying that he had money only for a night’s lodging in Bethlehem, and could they not see how great with child his wife was?

“Would that you had let me stay with my parents,” Mary had said bitterly, after the robbery attempt.

“Who then would have frightened the robbers away?” Joseph had turned from leading their donkey to grin at her. Finally, she returned the smile.

On the fifth day, as the sun was going down and the cold of the night again setting in, they reached the outskirts of Bethlehem. “We will first find lodging,” Joseph said. “Then, early in the morning, we will register. And then we will begin our journey home.”

Mary was worried. She had not told Joseph, for what, after all, could he do? It was a midwife she needed to talk to. Late that morning she had begun having pains. They were not the dull cramps she’d been feeling the last couple of weeks; these were harder. Yet they were not labor pains, either; of this she felt certain. She had seen women in labor, Elizabeth most recently, and these were not labor pains.

But then there came a sudden wetness beneath her, and Mary knew well what it was. She put her hand to her stomach. “Joseph?”

“Yes?” He turned to look back at her. In his face was great weariness. The journey had been hard on him, too; the last few miles, he had leaned heavily on his walking staff. “What is it?”

She swallowed.

Joseph’s eyes grew wide. He halted the donkey and asked anxiously, “Are you…? Oh, Mary, is it time?”

She nodded.

He stood stock-still. Clasped his hand together tightly. Leaned over to embrace her. Clasped his hands together again. Drew himself up and attempted, unsuccessfully, to speak slowly. “We shall find lodging and a midwife. Can you wait?”

She smiled at him, in spite of herself.

“Oh, I…forgive me, I know, I…” He kissed her forehead, her eyes, her mouth, and moved to lead the donkey forward. “Do not worry!” he called back to her.

But she was worried.

MORE THAN THREE
hours later, they had found nothing. Every inn was filled; people who had come to register had taken all the rooms. And though she knew it was not Joseph’s fault, though she knew he was doing all he could to find a place for them, Mary unleashed her fury upon him.

“You should not have had me come!” she said. “Because of you, my child is threatened—and myself, as well! I am in
agony,
and I must ride endlessly on a
donkey,
in search of something we cannot
find
!”

To all this, Joseph said nothing. He guided the donkey along, trying to keep him from going too fast and increasing her discomfort. It was not easy. Once, startled by something he saw, the donkey broke into a trot. Mary cried out, and in frustration Joseph jerked on the donkey’s lead and slapped him across the nose. The animal reared his head back and brayed. Joseph rushed to Mary’s side. “Are you all right?”

And she struck Joseph’s shoulder, saying, “Do not strike the
donkey
!” Then she put her face in her hands and began to weep.

Joseph stood still on the narrow street. “Mary,” he said. “I know not what to do. Forgive me.”

Mary continued to weep, and Joseph stood before her, his hands at his side, his face full of anguish. “Forgive me,” he said again. Then he gently touched her knee and moved back to the donkey. “I shall ask forgiveness of you as well,” he said, and pulled at the lead to turn the beast around.

“Where are we going?” Mary asked, panic in her voice. Was he going back to Nazareth? They could not! For now her labor had become intense; wave after wave of excruciating pain bore down upon her. She felt sick to her stomach; she needed to lie down.

“We will go back to the last inn,” Joseph said. “I will insist that he give us a room! I will tell him we can share with others.”

Mary drew in a deep breath and held on. The last inn they’d been to was not far. She thought she could make it.

When they arrived, Joseph left Mary in the street and ran to the door. She saw him gesture animatedly to the innkeeper; she saw the innkeeper shake his head. Joseph pointed to her, and the innkeeper peered around Joseph to look at her and shrugged. He lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness. Joseph raised his voice so that Mary could hear him plainly. “I tell you she is going to give birth! Now!”

From behind the innkeeper, Mary saw a woman’s head peeking out. Then she squeezed past and stood before him, hands on her hips, looking out at Mary. She spoke to her husband in low tones, and again he shook his head. She said something else, more sharply, and he shrugged, then walked away.

Joseph ran back to Mary. “What did they say?” she asked, full of hope.

“They have a stable. It is next to the inn, out of the cold.”

“A stable?”

“Next to the inn. There is an empty stall.” He began leading the donkey forward.

“A stable? I am to give birth in a
stable
?” Where would the hot water come from? Where the clean white cloths? Where the midwife’s stone, so that she could sit properly between Mary’s legs, and where the midwife’s assistants to hold Mary in such a way that she might better push? From where would come the aromatic oils to massage into her temples, the giant fennel to speed the labor, the sawdust to soak up the blood? There would be no women’s voices soothing her during her labor, no jubilant ululating after the birth, no feast offered to the newly delivered mother. She had nothing but Joseph.

And now not even him, for he lifted her off the donkey, helped her to lie down, and then said, “Wait for me here. They have told me where I might find a midwife.”

“Joseph!” she said. “Do not leave me! The baby is coming!”

“I shall be back as soon as I can. Mary, I must find a midwife. I know not what to do!”

He ran into the night. Dazed, Mary lay with her hands over her fiercely contracting stomach. A clucking chicken walked across her ankles, and its sharp claws cut her. The donkey was tethered beside a mule, and they both regarded her with a placid curiosity. There were two sheep, one baaing continuously. A rat ran across a corner of the stable and disappeared into the hay.

“Mother!”
Mary wailed, then cried for Anne yet again.

Then she grew silent. There was no use in wasting her energy this way. The baby was coming, no matter where she lay. She would need to pay attention and help herself, for surely the midwife would arrive too late.

She rose with difficulty and replaced the soiled hay beneath her with clean. Then she lay back down and took in long, deep breaths, trying to calm herself the way she had seen Elizabeth do. She closed her eyes and massaged her temples. She looked about for something to use as a holding rope, something that she might pull on with the pain, but saw nothing. So she removed her head cover and tied one end to the leg of the nearby manger. She tested it, pulling on it. And then used it for its purpose, as a hard pain came upon her. She rose up, clenched her teeth and pulled on the rope, clenched her teeth harder and pulled again. When the pain subsided, she lay back down and allowed herself one more moment of pity for her poor circumstances: She lay on the floor of a stranger’s stable. Somewhere, water dripped. The air was foul with the scent of the animals and their droppings. Wind blew in through the cracks of the walls. She closed her eyes. So be it. When the next pain came, she rose again and pulled.

And then Joseph and a young girl came hurrying through the stable door toward her. Mary smiled, then wept with relief. The girl pushed up Mary’s tunic, parted her legs, and gasped. Then, “Push!” she said.

Mary pushed, then said politely, “I am Mary of Nazareth.”

The girl spoke rapidly. “I am but a shepherdess, only two months ago having given birth myself. Thus has your husband asked me to help you. But I am only a shepherdess.”

Mary pushed again. “What is your name?”

“I am Rebecca of Bethlehem.” The girl was dirty-faced and looked full of fear; surely she was worried about failing these strangers, about being blamed if the baby or the mother died.

“I am grateful for your presence,” Mary said, then spoke no more.

She endured massive waves of pain, and in between them pushed with all her might. Joseph sat crouched near the doorway, helpless, his eyes wide. Mary looked at him and then beyond him, at the black sky filled with stars—she had never seen such stars. There was one far brighter than the others, and it was this star that she eventually focused on, for its ethereal presence brought her calm.

There came a sudden darkness, and Joseph, alarmed, stood and looked up at the sky. Mary rose to her elbows. But then as quickly as the dark had come, there came a blinding light from inside the stable. Joseph closed his eyes against it, and when he opened them again, the baby had been born.

MARY SAT WITH
her back against a bale of hay, holding Jesus. He had not yet cried, not even when he slipped out of her warm body and into the coldness of the night. He lay open-eyed and calm in her arms, and she stared down into his face, calm herself. Joseph sat beside her, wordless with gratitude that his wife had survived. He looked at her with the same adoration that shone on Mary’s face.

As soon as the shepherd girl had delivered the baby—a slight rotation of the shoulders was all that had been needed—she had run for supplies she’d not had time to fetch before. Now she returned with rags to clean Mary and the baby, and from which to make swaddling clothes. “He is a fine baby!” she told Mary, as she tore long strips from a tunic. “He has the same well-formed head as did my own Isaiah.” She smiled, her face full of pride at the thought of her son.

“Is he your first?” Mary asked, and Rebecca smiled and nodded. “But I pray that there will be many more, now that I have seen what endless joy comes to those with children.”

Behind Rebecca were two of the shepherds who had come down from the hills. They stood far back, speaking quietly to each other and craning their necks, trying to see the baby.

When she and Rebecca had finished swaddling him, Mary lay her son in the manger, which had been filled with clean, sweet-smelling hay. “You may come closer, and see him,” she told the shepherds. The men exchanged glances, one scratching absentmindedly at his chest, then under his arm. But then they approached, their hands at their sides, their faces full of humility and the kind of wonder always seen after a birth. But more. For one of the men, upon seeing the infant, fell to his knees. The second man quickly followed. Joseph looked over at Mary. She smiled.